The structure looked like the white saddle of a god which had been left to rest upon a field of asphalt. Families were walking from their cars parked on the state fairgrounds toward the arena like folks going to a carnival. Raleigh’s local mosque was just too small for the holiday prayer at the time. Dorton Arena had been rented out instead. My own family and I were among those walking toward the arena. My brother and I wore shalwar kameez for the holiday. We stepped inside and heard the voices of the men droning over the speakers. “Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar la ilaha illa-llah, Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar wa lil-lahil-hamd.”

My family and I walked over to the floor of the arena which was encircled by more than a legion of empty seats. My mother told us that she’d see us soon and walked on over to where the women gathered. My brother and I took off our shoes and followed our father over to where the men were assembling. We stopped where there were plenty of open spaces. I dropped my prayer mat onto the floor and unrolled it, facing east toward Mecca. I parked my little rear on the prayer mat and sat there cross-legged. The voices kept droning over the speaker. “Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar la ilaha illa-llah, Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar wa lil-lahil-hamd.”

We waited. More families poured into the arena. After prayer my family and I were going to spend all the day driving around Raleigh and Cary, going from house to house, paying visits to each and every Pakistani household hosting a holiday party. The moms would hand dollar bills out to all of us kids, and I relished the thought of being in possession of a fortune (about 50 bucks) by the end of the day. I knew that I’d spend much of the day alongside Ibrahim, my best friend from Sunday school. I didn’t know that he only had 10 months left to live. He was sickly. His parents were cousins. The droning continued. “Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar la ilaha illa-llah, Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar wa lil-lahil-hamd.”

I casually thought about what I’d snack on in all of those houses we’d visit. I hated Pakistani food. Too spicy. But the moms usually made sure to offer something for us fussy kids to eat. I’d fasted throughout the holy month. My mother had fasted as well. In previous years she’d only fasted on weekends during Ramadan. When her 10-year-old son had told her that he was going to fast throughout the month, she figured that she ought to as well. She still fasts during Ramadan to this very day. I’d made her very proud. I liked making her proud. “Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar la ilaha illa-llah, Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar wa lil-lahil-hamd.”

The pouring in of families had come to a trickle. Zakat (obligatory alms) from the Muslim community had almost all been collected. The imam, a gentle bearded man who came from Jordan, stood himself up. The rest of us stood ourselves and lined up behind him so that our little toes brushed. We placed our hands, right above left, on our abdomens. We knew ourselves to be servants of God. I’d been born into a household of servants, and was still unaware that God had chosen me for a son instead. “Allahu Akbar,” the imam said into the speaker. “Allahu Akbar,” the rest of us chanted, raising our hands from our abdomens to our ears. Prayer had begun.

“For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the freeborn woman. The son of the slave woman was born naturally, the son of the freeborn through a promise (Galatians 4:22-23).”

Today is Eid al-Fitr. Muslims throughout the world are eating and drinking during daylight hours for the first time in a month. Millions of Muslim boys and girls fasted during the holy month for their first time, making Eid particularly special for them this year, just as it had been for me back in 1993. I have many fond memories of Ramadan. It was a time to bond with family and friends, to develop compassion for those who are less fortunate, and to proudly proclaim the faith of my upbringing. I do miss it.

“How do the Muslims do that?” I’ve been asked, on quite a few occasions, by fellow Christians. The word “Islam” means submission. A practicing Muslim believes that fasting during Ramadan is an obligatory command, one of the Five Pillars of Islam, and understands that apparent difficulty doesn’t excuse any healthy person from obeying Allah. And so, the answer is that they simply do it anyway. That hundreds of millions of men and women do it every year proves that it’s not as “impossible” as some may imagine.  

Muslims throughout the world ought to be commended for the discipline which they demonstrate in fasting and prayer. I’ll go so far as to say that the spiritual self-discipline of the average Muslim far exceeds that of the average Christian. We Christians can learn much from our Muslim neighbors. 

I do still fast, especially during Lent, and most especially during Holy Week. My own upbringing as a Muslim has benefited the practice of my own faith as a Christian, and I’m very grateful for it. It’s while continuing to pray, through the growling complaints of your stomach, that you realize that the soul’s yearning for God far exceeds even that of the body’s physical needs. “A man shall not live by bread alone,” Our Lord had said when he was tempted by the devil in the wilderness. There are hardly any words fitting to describe what graces are available to a practicing Christian who’d integrate his knowledge of God’s love with the spiritual discipline commonly practiced by Muslims.

A Muslim is very correct to view him or herself as God’s subject. We Christians likewise understand that we are God’s subjects. Islam’s shortcoming is that it teaches Muslims that they may be God’s servants, but nothing more than servants. The denial of Christ’s divinity robs them of the freedom to boldly approach the Son of God as their brother, or to appeal to the Mother of God for prayer as they would their own mother. 

Eid happens to land this year on the feast of St. Athanasius of Alexandria. He was a 4th-century Egyptian bishop who opposed Arianism, a teaching that denied the full divinity of Christ. To any allegations that God’s purity would have been corrupted by taking on the nature of man, St. Athanasius countered that the Incarnation of Our Lord purifies the nature of man. “For the Son of God became man that man might become God,” he wrote. (This quote, which must be understood in proper context, is found in the Catechism.) St. Athanasius suffered exile, several times, for orthodox teaching to ultimately prevail over heresy. Three centuries later, the land of Egypt had been overrun by the armies of the Rashidun Caliphate, and a religion which denies the divinity of Our Lord was forced upon the people. The churches in the lands which Christ had walked have been on the brink of annihilation in the centuries since.  

Long before St. Athanasius had lived, St. Paul himself had prophetically compared the Christian faith to Islam in the words of Galatians 4:21-5:1, written more than 500 years prior to Muhammad’s birth. St. Paul argued that we are to be children like Isaac, the legitimate son of Abraham, rather than Ishmael (whom the Quraysh, Muhammad’s tribe, were said to be descendants of), who’d been conceived when Abram and his wife had considered themselves desperate (Genesis 16, 21). St. Paul writes:

These women represent two covenants. One was from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; this is Hagar. Hagar represents Sinai, a mountain in Arabia; it corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery along with her children. But the Jerusalem above is freeborn, and she is our mother. … Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of the promise. But just as then the child of the flesh persecuted the child of the spirit, it is the same now.

Does the resentment which Ishmael surely must have felt toward Isaac help explain why Muslims (even in non-Arab countries such as Pakistan) so commonly harbor intense hatred toward Jews? Do these words of being children of flesh help explain why it is that the heavenly visions commonly described in Islam, so filled to the brim with worldly pleasures, happen to be so lacking in imagination? Does a spirituality based upon slavery help explain why Muslim-majority countries are routinely so lagging in political liberties granted to their citizens?   

Next year, the date of Eid al-fitr is going to be 10 days earlier. It will be another 10 days earlier the year after that, since Islam goes by the lunar calendar. This is no trivial detail.

Brother sun’s immense light is blinding to the naked eye. Islam travels through time by sister moon’s much dimmer light. The moon’s light is merely a reflection of the sun. The light that she reflects on a given night is only as much as the world will allow her to reflect, as we can see from the crescent. The moon blocks the light of the sun during an eclipse, but only for a few minutes, and never fully.

It’s so easy to take for granted that Christ gave us the freedom to travel by the light of day! The children of God don’t resort to travel by night, as the servants do. But, at the same time, the obedience and discipline of servants can also do so much to teach us how to be better sons. My own journey in faith is likewise proof that servants get called to be sons, and therefore heirs, just like anyone born into free households. And so, to our Muslim neighbors who are celebrating this day, do remember to say: Eid Mubarak.